Geraint Nutt: How Hounslow Council places liveability at the heart of its community   | Policy blog

Geraint Nutt is the Head of Partnerships and Supply, Regeneration and Housing for the London Borough of Hounslow . In his blog below he outlines how Hounslow’s drive to use grey-belt sites, and work with potential development partners to build affordable and accessible housing, will kickstart a pipeline of suitable homes for disabled and older people, those with mobility challenges, and a range of other households, for the future.    

This year (2025) marks the 10th anniversary of the introduction of the M4(2) accessible and adaptable and M4(3) wheelchair user standards into building regulations. The introduction of those standards has been pivotal as they have enabled Local Authorities to ensure that all accessible and adaptable, and wheelchair user homes delivered across affordable housing developments are of a consistent quality.

For Hounslow, the regulations have been the key to us being one of the London boroughs who have led the charge on developing accessible housing for residents.

As part of our Corporate Plan 2022-2026, we have aimed to ensure that our neighbourhoods and towns have liveability at their heart. Hounslow caters for all residents in the borough, including disabled and older people, and people with mobility challenges. With a worsening housing crisis, our aim is to ensure that such residents can live independently in a quality accessible home. As per the strategy we want to see people live in homes that work for them and in neighbourhoods where they can belong, look out for each other, and play a role in their local community.

As the Council is always looking at ways to ensure that objective is met, we set out to identify surplus, small garage sites and land that we could build such homes on. We didn’t have the capacity to develop those sites ourselves, therefore we knew we had to collaborate with partners to develop such sites.

Identifying development partners

To do that, we set up a bidding process for potential partners who were looking for opportunities to grow their development pipeline. Habinteg Housing Association was one of those willing partners, with whom we have been able to develop these schemes..

We identified this opportunity in 2018/19, almost seven years before Secretary of State for Housing and Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner instructed all local planning authorities to review their green belt to identify potential grey-belt areas (“grey and ugly areas” like car parks) that could be developed into residential homes.

The most difficult aspect of building on such sites is often the size constraint and the high cost of developing such sites. Issues raised by the wider community such as over-development or loss of parking are also of concern, but through early and thorough community engagement and consultation, leading to quality design, such issues can be addressed.

We’re now seeing the benefits of working with development partners to bring forward these small sites. By the end of August 2025, we will have had 170 units delivered, including the accessible homes delivered by Habinteg.

Pipeline to address locals’ needs

Our internal waiting list of locals with mobility challenges shows us there is an ongoing need for accessible, affordable homes. These are households who often wait extended periods for an appropriate home.

This is why we believe it is vitally important that we have a pipeline of accessible homes to meet that long term need.

Hounslow’s new housing strategy for 2025-2030 – which is currently out for consultation - aims to address this long-term need for accessible homes to support disabled and older residents.

Affordable accessible homes

But there is no point in building homes that locals cannot afford, so the Council is prioritising more genuinely affordable homes. 

That includes more homes genuine accessible and adaptable homes, for smaller and large households, and equal provision for groups including Gypsies, Romani people and Travellers.

And with underutilised sites that are difficult to develop and deliver on our own, we understand the opportunities that partnerships with social housing providers like Habinteg bring.

Our local community’s needs coupled with the success of our bidding process means we’re aiming to expand the partner development programme into the future.

Ultimately such partnerships benefit the local authority, and the local community, as it allows us to make the first nominations for those homes, from people on our waiting list.